Strategy integrated in the sales planning process at an international apparel company
For a global brand in the apparel industry a model was created to support their strategic choices, focusing on the core collection to enforce their image, which in turn should create a spin-off to the casual lines. Converged targets were set on an aggregated level by sales directors with the bottom up planning process per customer by the sales reps.
Goals
- Support the sales reps in their ability to forecast and plan their sales based on the new grouping of the products;
- Support the managers in different countries to meet their goals, by creating real time insight into the status of sales per customer and sales representative;
- Support the corporate strategy to focus on the core collections.
Vision & Approach
The strategic choices to focus more on the core collection were enforced by making sales reps, managers and regional directors aware of these choices throughout the sales planning process. By delivering historical data based on the grouping used in the new sales forecast model, the sales reps were supported in creating a forecast in line with the corporate strategy.
During the sales cycle the actual orders were matched on a daily basis with the forecast data to create a realistic insight into the feasibility of the targets set. The sales managers were able to see which part of the customers was visited and the value of the orders connected to these visits. A good estimation of the customers not visited yet could also be given. This gave the sales manager the possibility to intervene in a timely manner to adjust either the way of working or the forecast to come to a plan with a high predictive value.
Added Value
- The strategy was supported by the planning process for the first time;
- Target setting was supported by the new forecasting model. A model was created that converged the target set on an aggregated level by sales directors with bottom up planning per customer by the sales reps;
- Through a daily order matching process, products that weren´t sold frequently enough could be taken out of the collection at an early stage, giving the sales reps the possibility to offer their clients a good alternative, thus decreasing the number of cancellations dramatically.
